Drunk, ambitious, in love? Or maybe you're just looking for God. From the sensual to the downright scheming, respondents in a new US study owned up to scores of unusual motives for having sex.
In the study by the University of Texas at Austin, the people surveyed surprised psychologists by giving 237 separate reasons for sex -- suggesting there are far more stimulants at play than may previously have been imagined.
"We found that people are having sex for lots of other reasons" beyond sheer arousal or a drive for procreation, said psychologist Cindy Meston, lead author of the paper published in the August issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Alongside predictable claims such as "I was 'horny'," "I was drunk," and "I was in love," was a catalogue of other "infrequent" justifications, from the sublime to the shocking.
Among them: "I wanted to get closer to God," "I felt sorry for the person," "I wanted to punish myself," and "I was slumming."
Both men and women reported doing it to get a job or promotion, or because they wanted to be "used or degraded."
Another response stated: "I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease."
Some claimed it was an aid to good sleep or even a headache cure.
A few respondents claimed they had done it because they wanted to have children.
Meston said she was surprised by apparent similarities between the genders indicated in the study.
The sexes shared 20 of the 25 top reasons, with the sheer carnal aspect the top motivator: the study cites "pure attraction" to the partner as the most common trigger for a coupling.
"The stereotype that men have sex for physical reasons and women have sex for love -- our data didn't really support that," Meston said, adding that men were more likely to endorse having sex in order to get favors.
The survey questioned 400 students and other volunteers at the university in order to draw up a list of different possible motivations, which were then put to some 1,500 undergraduates to tick off.
Meston acknowledged the study was largely limited to the sexual habits of students and also that people might have been reluctant to cite socially unacceptable motivations, such as the desire to make money or punish a partner.
But she plans further studies in the future.
"You need to know why people are having sex if you're trying to put into place a safe-sex program," Meston said.
"If you assume people have sex because they're in the heat of the moment, then (you tell them to) carry condoms. But if they're doing it for revenge or because they want to enhance their social status, that will require a different strategy."
